What is systemic change? Why is it needed in education today? It is helpful to think in terms of two different kinds of change: piecemeal change, often called tinkering, which entails modifying something (fixing a pnrt of it), and systemic change, often called paradigm shift, which entails replacing the whole thing. Systemic change is comprehensive. It recognizes that a fundamental change in one aspect of a system requires fundamental changes in other aspects in order for it to be successful. In education, it must pervade all levels of the system: classroom, building, district, community, state government, and federal government. And it must include the nature of the learning experiences, the instructional system that implements those learning experiences, the administrative system that supports the instructional system, and the governance system that governs the whole educational system (Banathy, 1991).

This chapter first focuses on describing what Educational Systems Development (ESD) is and why it is needed, and then addresses the interdependencies between Instructional Systems Design (ISD) and ESD.

Systemic thinking is a powerful tool that can help us to understand why educational technology has had relatively little effect on education and training, and to understand the changes that are swirling around us, so that we can respond to those changes in ways that will enhance our success. This article will explore what systemic thinking is and how it can help educational technologists in these turbulent times.

We have encountered four major meanings for "systemic changes in education, which we refer to as statewide, districtwide, schoolwide, and ecological systemic change. The ways that different reformers conceive of systemic change depend largely on their conceptions of what constitutes an educational system, and communication among educators is greatly impeded when they use the same term with different definitions. This section discusses these four conceptions.

WW 5: What Every AECT Member Needs to Know About Systemic Change: The Beginning of a Dialogue

What is this massive change? Why is it so important to AECT and to each of us? What should we do about it? In the spirit of making AECT and its annual conference more participatory, the purpose of this column is to continue a dialogue about the questions posed in this article...

This article presents a more detailed image of the features that appear to us to be emerging from the new conditions and educational needs of an information society. We call this image "LeamingSphere 2000." The purpose of this article is to present one possible image of a different paradigm of education, to help those interested in systemic restructuring both to "jump out" of their current mindsets about education, and to offer some ideas they might find useful for their own new system. Although this image contains many features that are likely to be universal in a successful information-age system of learning and human development, it also contains many particulars that could vary from one community to another, and some controversial features that will vary as community values vary.

We propose that there are four major reasons that some children are left behind in our schools: (1) they may have unmet needs that effectively block or interfere with their learning, (2) they may lack motivation to exert the effort necessary for learning, (3) they may lack the foundation of knowledge (skills, understandings, and information) that are required for, or facilitate, their learning, and (4) they may lack quality instruction to support their learning. First, we will describe each of these reasons that children are left behind, and then we will discuss what can be done about each.

NPE 3: New Instructional Theories and Strategies for a Knowledge-Based Society

The success of learners in our schools, universities, and corporate training programs depends on our ability to re-design learning systems to meet the new learning needs of the knowledge age (Reigeluth, 1994). This chapter explores the kinds of changes that are needed in our learning systems, with a particular emphasis on changes in instructional theories and strategies required for effective learning in the knowledge age.

In November 1989, there was a meeting of people who had been involved in helping to bring about fundamental restructuring in public schools. This chapter reports on one person's view of the results of that "Asilomar Conference." It describes 15 activities that appear to enhance the success of systemic restructuring, but more importantly it describes principles or guidelines that appear to enhance the success of each activity. Hopefully. this tentative process model will contribute to building a knowledge base that will help practitioners and other stakeholders to attain a quantum improvement in the quality of their educational systems.

In this article, we offer guidelines for selecting community members for systemic-restructuring efforts in public schools. A careful examination of what we mean by the terms "community" and "systemic restructuring" is followed by precursors which should be considered prior to beginning selection efforts. A justification for the importance of selection efforts is presented prior to an overview of selection guidelines. Finally, each of the steps in the community selection model is described in greater detail.

Abstract: A year prior to the NATO workshop described in this book, the first Asilomar Systems Conference was held (in 1989). One of the focuses of that conference was how to bring about systemic change of our current educational system. This paper describes the author's view of the results of those discussions: a stakeholder approach to educational systems design. It describes 15 activities that appear to enhance the success of system design efforts, and it identifies what appear to be the most important principles or guidelines for successfully carrying out each activity.

CP 4: A Conversation on Guidelines for the Process of Facilitating Systemic Change in Education

The International Systems Institute held its sixth annual conversation at Asilomar on November 14-19, 1993. At that meeting, seven participants self-selected themselves into a conversation group that met intensively over 4 days to develop some guidelines or principles for the process of facilitating systemic change in education. This is a report on how that group functioned and what it produced.

The trigger questions addressed included: What are the major stages in the systemic change process? Can you do systems design with only a part of the "system"? How important is scale (e.g., number of people, schools)? What is an educational system? Can you use the same design process in any culture? How can one best create the idealized design? What are the major goals, obstacles, guidelines? Can we design the process without knowing the product? and Are there big differences between working within the system and outside the system? A large portion of the effort focused on guidelines for facilitating the first two phases of the systemic change process: preparing for design and designing the new system.

This paper opens by addressing the emerging need for systemic change in K-12 school systems, with consideration given to requirements for new mindsets on educational change. Given the history of less than successful attempts at educational change, the
need exists for a guidance system which helps change facilitators to guide school districts and communities through a systemic change process. The paper describes the characteristics and elements of a systemic change guidance system which builds on the principles of process facilitation and systems design. It examines in detail the integral values or beliefs related to facilitation and systemic change, the types of events (sets of activities) typically needed, and the processes which form the guidance system. Also discussed is the process used to create the guidance system.

In this article, we summarize the maps and descriptions we are developing for a guidebook of the same title as this article (Jenlink, Reigeluth, Carr, & Nelson, 1995). We begin by offering our view of the definition and purpose of systemic change, and for whom our guidebook is designed. Then we describe the logic of the journey (change process), followed by a description of some tools (beliefs) that a facilitator is likely to find helpful for avoiding and overcoming the numerous obstacles. Then we briefly describe some specific actions for a guide (process facilitator) to take and specific activities for the explorers and settlers (change team members and stakeholders) to engage in to decide upon their destination, plan their route, and undertake the journey.

According to several observers (e.g., Clark, 1997; Fullan, 1993; Postman, 1996), America lacks compelling visions of what public education should be like. Yet experience has shown that a common vision is among the most important factors for bringing about
positive change in any organization (see, e.g., Barker, 1990; Drucker, 1989; Senge, 1990). Furthermore, as Edward Clark (1997) put it:

Since people only pursue long-term visions because they want to -I suggest that the first step in educational reform should be to invite teachers to "think big" and create a vision of the future they desire. (p. 48)

The purpose of this article is to help to develop such visions for our educational systems.

CP 8: Banathy's Influence on the Guidance System for Transforming Education

This article is a tribute to the work of Bela H. Banathy. We identify how Banathy has influenced our work on systemic change in education. For Banathy (1996) the crux of systemic change is found in systems design, which is a process that engages
stakeholders in conversations on their visions, ideals, values, and aspirations with the goal to intentionally create their ideal educational system. Particular attention is paid to how Banathy's theoretical framework has influenced the development of the Guidance System for Transforming Education (GSTE) that we are currently developing (Jenlink, Reigeluth, Carr, and Nelson, 1996, 1998, in final preparation) for facilitating systemic change in public school districts. The GSTE offers practitioners an application of Banathy's ideas.

CP 9: Formative Research on an Early Stage of the Systemic Change Process in a Small School District

This study utilised a qualitative research methodology known as formative research to improve the process guidelines that are described in the Guidance System for Transforming Education (GSTE). This study took place in a small (5447 students), partly urban and partly rural school district in Indiana. The researchers, also serving as change facilitators, investigated an early stage of the systemic change process as outlined in the GSTE. Specifically, the research focused on field-testing and improving the process for assessing the district’s readiness for change. It was found that this process could have been improved if the facilitators had had more guidance to help them develop the interview protocols.

Holistic, integrated restructuring efiorts tend to be based on central themes. General features such as teacher collaboration and mastery learning have emerged in the process. The authors highlight five outstanding examples of schools throughout the country where unifying themes have helped restructure in meaningful ways and discuss general trends in restructuring.

Because most readers are familiar with instructional systems design (ISD), and because there are many similarities between ESD and ISD, it may be helpful to understand ESD by comparing and contrasting it to ISD. ESD is broader in scope than ISD, for ISD is a subset of ESD, but both encompass knowledge bases for "process" and "product" (means and ends). Furthermore, ESD has a foundation in systems thinking and design thinking, and it focuses on holistic transformation rather than piecemeal change. These four issues are discussed below.

Can NCLB-type legislation and reforms that rearrange rather than change schools provide real hope for educational improvement? Based on about 15 years of experience working with schools to facilitate change, we think that the answer is "No." It is our belief that
transformation of education is most likely to succeed if it occurs by way of a design process undertaken and "owned" by educators in partnership with community stakeholders. In other words, for real improvement to take hold, schools must be re-visioned and redesigned by the people who will use them. This is a very different approach to school change with the potential for very different results.

Technology should be viewed as a catalyst for systemic restructuring in every component of a school system. Technology allows the actors in a restructured schoolstudents. administrators, and what we call teacher guides-to assume new roles by giving them new powers in instructional management, research, communication, and the very act of learning itself.

RTC 2: Educational standards: To Standardize or to Customize Learning?

Standards, properly conceived, are just one necessary, but not sufficient, part of a comprehensive redesign of a very complex education system, Dr. Reigeluth notes. If not properly conceived, standards can do far more harm than good..

This article explores whether technology might allow us to transform our teaching methods in ways that could result in a quantum improvement in learning, and if so, what some of the new methods might be like. It begins with a look at how broader changes in society might influence the issue of technology integration versus technology transformation. Then it explores the sorts of transformations that may be needed and the roles technology might play in enabling those transformations.

TSC 1: A professional development program in educational systems design

This (next) article reports on a preliminary effort to develop a blueprint for a professional development program in educational systems design (ESD). The program is intended to prepare people to be facilitators in major educational change and systemic restructuring efforts. This preliminary blueprint originated from conceptual work done by a small team of theorists and practitioners assembled at the Fourth International Conference on Comprehensive Systems Design of Education, in Asilomar, California in December of 1992. These included the authors, Bela Banathy, and others who attended the Asilomar conference and gave input...

Recognizing the fundamentally important roles of teachers in a new educational system, one of the most urgent themes for teachers should be to prepare themselves to fulfill their new roles in the system. This article proposes a teacher's workshop as a means for
enabling teachers to carry out their new roles in a thirdwave educational system.

The purpose of this chapter is to examine how each of these issues can be addressed through effective professional development in systemic educational change. This discussion begins with a review of what systemic educational change is and why it is vital to the endurance of school reform, the process educators engage in during systemic change, and the issues affecting this process. The chapter continues with a look at the rationale and purpose of professional development in systemic educational change and the ways in which it can best be accomplished.